The Doctor's Name
by HelenaHermione
Summary: "Do you know my name?" The Doctor asked. A story of regenerations, and the attempts to share a name with friends.


Here is a story about the Doctor's name, or for the majority of the story, the Doctor's attempt to say his name. Yes, I know the name, or at least my version of it, so bear with me through-regenerations to get to that name.

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><p><strong><span>The First Part<span>**

"Ben-Polly-" The First Doctor gasped as he staggered into the TARDIS. His two companions turned around, and raced to his side as he fell down.

"Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?" Ben asked, as Polly checked his pulse.

"Do you know my name?" The First Doctor asked, his eyelids fluttering.

"We don't know you that well," Ben said with a laugh. "We only know you after WOTAN tried to take over the world, and then you surprised us by taking us to pirate-infested Cornwall in the 1600s—next thing you know, we're here in the South Pole, dealing with Cybermen." Ben said, trying to smile at Polly, who looks worried. "What can happen next?" Ben asks.

"I'm dying, but it's not the end." The Doctor says. "No, it is not," He insists as a bright light flashes, blinding Ben and Polly, who stagger back as his face...changes.

* * *

><p>The Second Doctor laid on the floor, morosely playing a game of cards all by himself, when suddenly the door opened and he looked up. "Jaime, Zoe!" He cried, as his friends came down to hug him-only to be stopped by a force field.<p>

"Oh, bollocks!" He shouted, frowning as he stared up at the other Time Lord. "I hate you." He muttered. "It's because of Time Lords like you that I had to get away from this planet in the first place. How can you be so unfeeling and cold!" He cried.

"I have brought your friends to say good-bye," The other Time Lord said, frowning. "Be grateful that we allow you this chance."

"Oh, I'm grateful, can't complain, why should I blame you!" The Doctor cried.

Jamie and Zoe complained to the Time Lord, and he lifted the ban, with the Doctor sarcastically thanking the other Time Lord. Miserable people, he should have left the Time Lords ages before he did. Zoe and Jamie shook hands with him, asking if he was all right, and he tried to assure them that it was all just a bunch of boring speeches, even though he was worried about his chances.

They couldn't blame him for what he had done, could they? He had done the right thing all of the time, even though it was wrong of him to steal that TARDIS in the first place, but that was right too. He had fought evil and saved planets using his TARDIS, after being set straight by such people as Ian, Barbara, and Susan—surely all of that good outweighed the worst he had done? He couldn't be blamed, he would be pardoned and forgiven.

Jamie tried to make light of the situation, but he didn't know a thing about it-not like the Doctor did. Jamie and Zoe suggested escape and the Doctor decided to go along with it for old times' sake, knowing that it would be botched. He knew the Time Lords, they weren't second-rate villains, they were a formidable, able to stop him, Jamie, and Zoe quite easily enough—they wouldn't be able to escape Gallifrey and the Time Lords, who were unstoppable. Nothing could defeat them, not even Daleks.

They went into the mist, Jamie leading the way as they stepped from stone to stone, the Doctor already forming a proper farewell speech in his mind—he would be glad if they got away, it almost seemed likely at this point.

"Do you know, Zoe and Jamie, I don't think I've ever told you two—well, I've hardly ever told anyone-"

"Now is not the time to talk, Doctor!" Jamie remarked, as he tried to straddle a difficult bit of terrain.

"Right, right, of course, I will tell you all later," He said, looking down.

But Jamie and Zoe deserved better than to be always on the run with him, away from the Time Lords, which they would be for helping him to escape Gallifrey. Perhaps it would be easier on them if he gave up now, let them be returned home safe and sound-he would give up, and surrender. He was almost glad when the Time Lords cornered him and his friends just as they were about to enter the TARDIS.

He reluctantly, and gladly, said farewell to Jaime and Zoe, ashamed that he had let this drag on for so long. He shook hands and hugged them, as they joked around, reassuring Zoe that she would see him again, and Jaime that he would never forget them, and he never once told them his name as he waved farewell to them entering the TARDIS module. He knew that they would forget him—it was the way of Time Lords, to keep the secrets of the universe and preserve their anonymous nature, that any who had contact with them should have their memories erased. But at least the Time Lord promised him that they would have at least one memory of him, that of their first adventure together—it was enough, perhaps, but never enough. Those blasted Time Lords.

He saw what happened to Zoe and Jamie, how they were settled back into their old lives—Zoe, to repair the Wheel, Jamie, to fight—the Doctor was worried when Zoe seemed to realize something was wrong, and he laughed at Jamie charging at a redcoat, even though he wanted to cry, knowing what harsh fate the Scotsman might have to face on the battlefield.

And he reluctantly went off to face his own fate.

* * *

><p>Sarah Jane Smith gathered the Doctor's jacket and folded it into her arms, inhaling his scent as she wished-oh, he had been gone for so long, to Metebelis Three to return the blue crystal to the Great One, and yet he had not come back. He always came back for her, and for UNIT. She and the others had waited for him to come back, waited for weeks, and now...the Brigadier had given the orders to clean up the Doctor's laboratory. He wasn't coming back. He was probably dead by now.<p>

Sarah Jane couldn't accept it, not really, and she wished that—that she might get the chance to say—the Brigadier popped in, and Sarah Jane tried to smile and be cheery, but she missed the old man, she missed the Time Lord that she had come to love as a dear friend. She was looking around at all of the things that reminded her of the Time Lord, trying to come up with some excuse for why she was here, but the Brigadier saw right through her—he probably felt the same way, even though he would not care to admit it.

She and the Brigadier had become friends, because of the Time Lord—who would have thought it was possible for a journalist like her, and a soldier like him? The Brigadier tried to reassure her, but it was a lie, just a lie. Sarah Jane had to face reality, just like the Doctor did, and had to be brave and face death, just like the Doctor did—she would be brave, for him, and mourn privately, not publicly. She would mourn.

Suddenly, she heard the sound, that wonderful sound, that reminded her there was hope in the universe, hope for—she turned around, and saw the TARDIS come into being right before her and the Brigadier, startled by its appearance. The door opened oh so slowly, oh what was wrong, she wondered, could it be that the Doctor was alive, but why—how—Sarah Jane rushed forward and stared up into the pale face of death: the Doctor. He was alive, but weak, barely standing, but smiling as he saw her. He had gotten lost in the time vortex, he said. But he had made it home, that was all that counted, the TARDIS had brought him home.

He staggered forward and collapsed onto the floor as she wept, so scared and sad to see him in this condition, the Time Lord brought low. Never had she imagined this would happen. Why did he have to go back? To face his fear, but this was her fear.

"Have I told you my name?" The Third Doctor asked.

"Please don't die." Sarah Jane said. "Don't tell me your name. I don't want to hear it, not now. You will live. You will not die." She said. The Brigadier remained silent, crouched beside them, his head bowed in remorse.

"A tear? Sarah Jane?" The Doctor said, looking up at her and wiping the tear away as she tried to smile. "No, don't cry. While there's life, there-" And then he gasped, dying.

"No..." Sarah Jane said, closing his eyes. "What is it?" She asked, staring up at the Brigadier, looking straight ahead, unseeing at some distant point that did not exist here. Sarah Jane heard it as well, a strange humming sound that filled the air—she turned her head, and saw K'anpo, who had regenerated recently. The Brigadier and Sarah Jane stood up, facing the other Time Lord, who told them the Doctor was not dead.

"I can't take much more of this." Sarah Jane said.

K'anpo offered help in the Doctor's regeneration, and suddenly he changed—again, as the Brigadier added, into a new man, a different man, with a different brain. She did not recognize him anymore, and soon it became apparent to her the Doctor was tired of UNIT, of the Brigadier. He left soon after they dealt with a killer robot, but he took her along with him, and Dr. Harry Sullivan, too.

"Who is the Doctor?" Harry asked, as he looked around the inside of the Doctor's TARDIS.

"One of a kind," Sarah Jane Smith said, but even she doubted her words as she glanced at the stranger, who was starting to become familiar to her once more, albeit in a different way-he was not the old man anymore. He was stronger, stranger, crazier, and more bizarre than ever before, but she did love him, in a different way.

* * *

><p>The flashes of his enemies' faces just before his hands slipped from the cable-the Fourth Doctor knew it was inevitable in that moment, even though the security guards climbing up to save him thought they might have a chance. Fat chance. He might as well give up now.<p>

It was inevitable, and sort of ridiculous in a way, that he would die saving the universe from entropy, to continue the work the Logopolitans had been doing to stave off heat death. Reminded him of something familiar, though, something he had forgotten about for all of these years. It was fitting, though, that he should die this way.

He managed to swing from the cable onto part of the satellite, thinking there was perhaps a chance that he could hang around for a little while longer, just a little while longer until he was saved, but even that wasn't right—he wouldn't find safe purchase here.

First one hand, and then the other hand slipped, and it was a long way down, he discovered, even though he could have calculated the time it took to fall by the height and Earth's gravity within a minute. The fall took less than a minute, though it felt like an eternity to him, screaming all the way down, spiraling out of control—first up at the Pharos Project and the sky, then down at the ground, the green grass he would land upon, and then up at the sky again.

He screamed, and landed-hard. All of his bones were crushed. It hurt so much, he could barely move. He hurt so badly. He wanted to die, but it wasn't over yet, was it? No, it wasn't. He stared up at the sky he had saved, the birds he heard whistling, and thought to himself it wasn't so bad—nature would take its course. He waited silently alone. The satellite above him, the Pharos Project, pointed at the stars-they would find what they were looking for someday. He had already found it, life in the universe beyond.

"Doctor, Doctor," They called for him, out in the universe beyond, all of the friends and family he had ever known—he had so many friends.

"My friends..." The Doctor said, as first Adric, the dear lovely loyal boy, Tegan, the flight stewardess from Australia he had just met yesterday or today, and then Nyssa—ah, sweet, poor Nyssa—came to his side.

"Adirc-Nyssa-" The Doctor blinked, staring at them. "Where did you two come from? I left you on the TARDIS-"

"The Watcher brought us here," Adric said, "Just like it brought Nyssa-"

"Ah, the Watcher," The Doctor said, smiling. "He helped us. I seem to be forgetting—names are important to me." He said, nodding. "I seemed to have forgotten my own, for awhile. Have I told you all-no, of course not. I never tell you all my name." He said, a little cross with pain as the others stared at him and at each other, perplexed.

"It seems to have something to do with entropy, though, the state of decay," The Doctor said, nodding. "And it goes full circle." He smiled broadly. "It goes full circle, does it not?" He asked the others.

Adric, remembering some of the conversations he had with the Doctor in recent days about entropy, slowly nodded, even though he didn't quite understand. "It does indeed, Doctor." He said.

"Thank you for waking me up." The Doctor said. "It is the end, but the moment has been prepared for...has it not?" He asked his future self.

"It has indeed," The Fifth Doctor said, entering into himself, the in-between state kick-starting the regeneration process with all of his friends present. He counted on his friends.

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><p>To be continued-there are two more parts to this story.<p> 


End file.
